Proud to be a skunk

September 21, 2007|By Alan Guebert, Special to the Farm Forum

In response to a tidal wave of tainted imported food and consumer goods hitting America this summer, President George W. Bush created the Interagency Working Group on Import Safety July 18 to, as the New York Times reported, “identify actions that can be taken within 'existing resources' to improve import safety.” If you take two seconds to ponder that mandate, the first question your brain might deliver is “Hmm, if the tainted imports escaped detection under 'existing resources,' how can new actions taken within those same resources improve import safety?” They can't, but this search for things already known will not keep the Working Group - all cabinet level political appointees - from delivering what The Boss wants. Indeed, it already has. On Sept. 10, the Working Group's chairman, Secretary of Health and Human Services Mike Leavitt, issued a preliminary report (a final report is due in November) that conceded the nation cannot protect its citizens from dangerous imports under the current inspection regime. The reasons, however, Leavitt related, are not related to money, regulations, enforcement or inspectors. No, the biggest reason is simple. “Due to the vast volume of imported products, it is impossible to ensure safety simply by increasing government inspections,” Leavitt conceded. But wait, Leavitt went on, we can minimize the growing dangers if our import safety “agencies expand on existing public-private relationships...” In plain English, America can expand import safety by privatizing more of the process-partnering-up with profit-seeking companies and trade groups to better police imports for our (and, of course, their) greater good. It's a new take on an old idea that has already failed. Two weeks ago, Mattel, Inc., the toy seller, admitted it waited months-and sometimes years-to report defects in imported toys despite being required by law to notify the Consumer Product Safety Commission within 24 hours because it thought the reporting rule “unreasonable.” Institutionalizing failure is nothing new to today's free-trading political leaders. On July 17, the day before the President named him to the Import Safety Working Group, Secretary of Agriculture Mike Johanns bragged that new, risk-based rules for imported fruits and vegetables “will allow us to focus less on administrative processes”-read that to mean inspections-“and more on the science of facilitating imports...” Science, explains Tony Corbo of Food and Water Watch, a Washington, D.C.-based food and water watchdog group, pretty much is what multinational agbiz barons tell government regulators it is. In this case, he says, “science” will be imported fruits and vegetables that have been irradiated-nuked-in overseas plants to kill pests or disease so the food then can be safely brought into the U.S. It's part and parcel of the continuing government process to dilute import safety in the name of increased trade, Corbo continues. “USDA is working overtime to lift the ban in older, imported Canadian cattle despite continued discoveries of 'mad cow' in Canada,” he notes. “USDA is also working on a rule to allow cooked, Chinese-origin chicken into the U.S. It already allows U.S. and Canadian raw chicken, sent and then cooked in China, back into the U.S.” Crazy, right? Absolutely, if you're a U.S. producer or consumer. But the science-for-trade trade-off makes perfect-and profitable-sense if you're a multinational poultry or meat packer hoping to source cheaper protein offshore to sell in America at American prices. Moreover, if you question the orthodoxy of this trade-at-any-cost approach, you are labeled a protectionist, the equivalent of a skunk at the company picnic. 'Course, skunks are instinctively smart enough not to hand over their kin, territory and lives to a sweet-talking fox without a fight. Columnist Alan Guebert is the owner of Ag Comm in Delavan, Ill. Guebert's Farm and Food File is published weekly throughout the U.S. and Canada. Contact him at agcomm@sbcglobal.net. See IMPORTS, Page 2F 42nd Year No. 25 Friday, September 21, 2007 Agripulse 126F Antiques 100F Crop Weather 87F Farmer to Farmer 126F Jane Green 102F Horse Forum 125F Hortiscope 91F Market Adviser 4F Jerry Nelson 73F Outdoors Forum 122F Rural Reflections 2F Wheels 46F 4.6 million tons of alfalfa hay were estimated to be grown in South Dakota this year, up 60 percent from last year, according to USDA. More Brown County Fair results inside